I'd rather pump bolts into my eye sockets from an airpowered nailgun than sit through the latest Tarantino spunk-fest.

This Django will most certainly remain chained, at least from me (and hopefully other non-idiots).

So you really came here to make this comment about a movie nobody brought up, just to say you don't like Tarantino and won't see his latest movie which you're somehow also sure is bad? Fuck dude, if you don't want to take a chance on a movie from a director whose other stuff you don't like that's fine; however, you also forfeit your right to mouth off about it, especially since you seem to have done so here just in order to start an argument. There's zero content to your post aside from some "witty" insults and the insinuation that anyone who even goes to see the movie is an idiot. How is that not trolling?

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

That's basically all he ever does though. If you don't like what darkeningday likes, and if you even think anything he hates is worthy of a cursory viewing, apparently you're a total idiot with no real value to his opinion at all...

Eh, forgot Django Unchained was even coming out so soon, but I'll give it a watch. Not sure what to really expect but Inglorious Basterds was awesome, so that's on the plus side. That was his best movie in years.

Bloody hell was Les Misérables boring. It's the longest movie ever, yet few things happen, most of the characters are one dimensional, except Hugh Jackman's who is TWO DIMENSIONAL, it's utterly impossible to care about any of them or what's happening, long songs are dedicated to a character speaking about one feeling yet somehow not getting fleshed out, Hathaway overracts, Seyfried abuses falsetto the whole time and mostly sounds horrid. Just urgh. And every single thing is sung, which would be okay if the melodies were memorable but they're not. Most of it, beyond a few Russel Crowe moments, isn't memorable in the least and is basically just mind numbing sing talking. None of the events feel like they're really given any weight, feeling rushed despite the movie being infinitely long. The revolution sort of casually pops up and major characters are absentmindely introduced almost three quarters into the movie. I can't really think of any positives beyond the sets looking good right now so I'll leave it at that. The title is appropriate really, watching it was a miserable experience.

Bloody hell was Les Misérables boring. It's the longest movie ever, yet few things happen, most of the characters are one dimensional, except Hugh Jackman's who is TWO DIMENSIONAL, it's utterly impossible to care about any of them or what's happening, long songs are dedicated to a character speaking about one feeling yet somehow not getting fleshed out, Hathaway overracts, Seyfried abuses falsetto the whole time and mostly sounds horrid. Just urgh. And every single thing is sung, which would be okay if the melodies were memorable but they're not. Most of it, beyond a few Russel Crowe moments, isn't memorable in the least and is basically just mind numbing sing talking. None of the events feel like they're really given any weight, feeling rushed despite the movie being infinitely long. The revolution sort of casually pops up and major characters are absentmindely introduced almost three quarters into the movie. I can't really think of any positives beyond the sets looking good right now so I'll leave it at that. The title is appropriate really, watching it was a miserable experience.

It's perhaps a bit unfair to judge the quality of a musical, which was specifically tailored to be enjoyed in a live setting, by the Hollywood film it spawned. For example, The Producers on Broadway was absolutely unparalleled on the stage (granted, its main competition at the time was the abysmal Wicked), but the film version was fucking horrendous and its soundtrack was way worse than any of the live Broadway recordings.

I'm kind of a musicals enthusiast and with a tiny bit of self-appointed, mostly unearned authority, I can say Les Mis falls in about the top 20% of mainstage musicals. Not a bonafide classic or anything, but definitely not "pretty much mostly shit."

I dislike musicals in general; I've only ever managed to sit through three film versions. Les Mis looks like my idea of hell...

failsafeman wrote:

It's not characters in general - it's characters in this type of horror movie specifically that need to be sympathetic. The reason is quite simple; the audience has to want good things to happen to the characters, to want them to escape a shitty fate, in order for the threat of that shitty fate to actually create decent tension. In Splice I thought both of the main characters were dumbasses who totally deserved whatever awful crap was going to happen to them, so I didn't care when things inevitably started going bad.

It's just rape in general is so often used in movies (and literature, too) as a cheap ploy to gross out audiences because it's a pretty gruesome thing that many people have a visceral reaction to seeing. It takes no imagination; they could show a rape scene between two characters we'd never seen before with zero buildup and it would still gross people out just because of the real life implications. It would have been way more interesting if it had been consensual, as the with the Adrian Brody character. That also adds kind of a gender essentialist vibe to the whole thing, where the man wants to bone the sexy girl monster while the woman just gets raped by the scary guy monster. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one; I think the concept had potential, and I agree that Oedipus-gone-wrong idea could have worked very well, but it was squandered by crappy presentation.

Yeah, we'll have to agree to disagree. My two final points (sorry, I have to rattle these off, otherwise I'll be thinking about this all night): a) I really don't think the audience needs to want good things to happen to characters in films like Splice; I thought the general horror of their situation, even though it was their fault, was enough to establish the bare minimum of sympathetic engagement I require and make me wish a little that things didn't go even more horribly wrong for the characters. b)

Yeah, of course, any rape scene immediately has that gross-out effect. However, that they were mother and son - with the whole disturbing history behind them, and the relationship with Brody's character - took it to another level, doing something psychologically that no scene between unrelated characters ever could. Though, yes, if it had been consensual, that would have been even more imaginatively disturbing.That gender essentialism idea is a really interesting one. The whole film seems to play around with gender issues, but it can be taken to have a rather conservative view there - it all goes wrong when the young couple don't have kids and a woman focuses on her career (in a stereotypically male domain) and everyone plays around with reproduction rather than doing it the wholesome way - which is really quite creepy to me on another level entirely. Very intriguing.

Rare Exports A Christmas Tale, directed by Jalmari Helander 2010. A very good film indeed, a look at the origins of the real Santa a really original tale and funny too. It is refreshing to see films being made about the folklore about Santa.

There you go again, making non-arguments appear out of thin air. You're like an argument magician. But one of those magicians who's sleigh of hand is really shit. Who can't be bothered to practice it, cause he's too busy getting hammered while listening to Nightwish.

Also it has been established that Zelkiiro has crappy taste in movies, metal, and anime. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he had crappy taste in musicals too, though I personally know nothing about them.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

I'd rather pump bolts into my eye sockets from an airpowered nailgun than sit through the latest Tarantino spunk-fest.

This Django will most certainly remain chained, at least from me (and hopefully other non-idiots).

So you really came here to make this comment about a movie nobody brought up, just to say you don't like Tarantino and won't see his latest movie which you're somehow also sure is bad? Fuck dude, if you don't want to take a chance on a movie from a director whose other stuff you don't like that's fine; however, you also forfeit your right to mouth off about it, especially since you seem to have done so here just in order to start an argument. There's zero content to your post aside from some "witty" insults and the insinuation that anyone who even goes to see the movie is an idiot. How is that not trolling?

I've read the script. I'm a paid screenwriter, so it's sort of my job to keep up with the status quo of what's popular. It was fucking garbage, like all of his screenplays.

The only reason I brought it up was because my Facebook was "blowing up" with excited "OH EM GEE, TARANTINO TYME!!!" style status-updates from all of my idiot friends, and I came here to unleash a mini-rant before this thread started erupting with Tarantino worship (like it did when the reprehensible Inglourious Basterds shat itself all over the cinema screen.) You know as well as I the next few pages will be littered with Tarantino talk; ain't nothin' wrong with getting in your opinion early.

You're still not telling us why you think his screenplays are garbage, so no one cares about your opinion, especially after delivering it the way you did. Do you feel a lot smarter than everyone else for having put that out there before the Tarantino worship floodgate opens?

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LegendMaker on pointless genre dissection wrote:

Will you in turn help me classify the shemale/ladyboy, tranny/ladyboy, ladyboy-shemale/tranny, and tranny-ladyboy/shemale sub-folders of my shemale/ladyboy/tranny collection?

Why did Tom Hardy sound like Larry the Cable Guy doing an impression of a posh, gay British socialite? Why did Anne Hathaway have flip-top goggles with LEDs embedded in them? Why was pretty boy Joesph Gordon-Levitt cast as a tough as nails cop who cuts his teeth on dead babies and Reaganomics? What was the point of revealing that Marion Cotillard endured the same terror-gauntlet as Batman? Where did the quarter-billion dollar production budget go?

WHY WAS THIS FCKING MOVIE ALMOST THREE HOURS LONG when the entire plot could've been summed up with the sentence fragments "Batman stops bomb. Gotham is saved."

"Favorite" moment:

Morgan Freeman: This bomb is could go off in a matter of months!Joey Gordon-Lev: This bomb is a time bomb!

Tarantino is still crap though, and completely full of himself as well.I sort of forgot why I hated him until I catched a bit of Kill Bill 2 on tv. I loved that "this truth serum will take 3 minutes to work, so allow me a masturbatory philosophical monologue of questionable relevance to the movie" part. Well, I didn't really love it, but i would have if I'd enjoy screenwriters jerking themselves off in my face.I also love (in a genuine sense, because it makes me feel clever) when I can tell if a scene is a reference to another movie even though I've never seen it, simply by how hamfisted it is.

Also it has been established that Zelkiiro has crappy taste in movies, metal, and anime. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he had crappy taste in musicals too, though I personally know nothing about them.

That's basically all he ever does though. If you don't like what darkeningday likes, and if you even think anything he hates is worthy of a cursory viewing, apparently you're a total idiot with no real value to his opinion at all...

The only reason I brought it up was because my Facebook was "blowing up" with excited "OH EM GEE, TARANTINO TYME!!!" style status-updates from all of my idiot friends,

So? Tell your friends. Write on your blog. No one here is interested.

darkeningday wrote:

and I came here to unleash a mini-rant before this thread started erupting with Tarantino worship (like it did when the reprehensible Inglourious Basterds shat itself all over the cinema screen.) You know as well as I the next few pages will be littered with Tarantino talk; ain't nothin' wrong with getting in your opinion early.

Yeah sure. If your opinions are always going to be so adversarial while also utterly lacking in content, you can keep them to yourself. Once in a while, fine, but this is a serious trend and it needs to stop. For someone who supposedly knows so much about film, you're really really bad at actually explaining why you hold these extreme opinions.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

I'm not entirely sure what "a serious trend" even means (is it a Batman reference? 90% of things I don't understand end up being Batman references), but OK. I will endeavor to add a bit more substance to my rants.

But Tarantino still really sucks (for reasons BTK rather explicitly goes over--probably with a lot more level-headedness than I would ever bring to the table).

But if you like, I can copy&paste my fifteen page essay entitled "The Fallacy of Quentin Tarantino" in spoiler quotes.

Count me in as a major QT fanboy. Death Proof was his only letdown. I saw Django today. Though the film does kick ass, it's not near as great as Basterds. I blame Jamie Foxx and the absence of Quentin's longtime film editor for the movie not being quite as good as I expected. Leo was pretty damn good in it but Gary Oldman would have done wonders for the film in that role. I'd the film rate slightly higher than Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2 with those being his least efforts outside of Death Proof.

I was surprised to hear a filmmaking genius like Tarantino say Rise of the Planet of the Apes was one his favorite films. Really?!

I'm not entirely sure what "a serious trend" even means (is it a Batman reference? 90% of things I don't understand end up being Batman references), but OK. I will endeavor to add a bit more substance to my rants.

But Tarantino still really sucks (for reasons BTK rather explicitly goes over--probably with a lot more level-headedness than I would ever bring to the table).

But if you like, I can copy&paste my fifteen page essay entitled "The Fallacy of Quentin Tarantino" in spoiler quotes.

I would be interested in reading this. I'm not too keen on what Tarantino does either, meaning taking ideas, methods, and techniques which have existed outside of Hollywood for decades, putting them in his films and presenting them to Hollywood film audiences who are completely unaware of their existence, and soaking up the the glory. If you don't want to paste the essay in this thread, a pm would be fine as well.

Tarantino is still crap though, and completely full of himself as well.I sort of forgot why I hated him until I catched a bit of Kill Bill 2 on tv. I loved that "this truth serum will take 3 minutes to work, so allow me a masturbatory philosophical monologue of questionable relevance to the movie" part.

Bill: As you know, I'm quite keen on comic books. Especially the ones about superheroes. I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favorite superhero, Superman. Not a great comic book. Not particularly well drawn. But the mythology … the mythology is not only great, it's unique.

The Bride:[who still has a dart in her leg] How long does this shit take to go into effect?!

Bill: About two minutes, just long enough for me to finish my point. Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak, he's unsure of himself, he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race. Sort of like Beatrix Kiddo and Mrs. Tommy Plympton.

The Bride: The point emerges.

Bill: You would've worn the costume of Arlene Plympton. But you were born Beatrix Kiddo. And every morning when you woke up, you'd still be Beatrix Kiddo. Oh, you can take the needle out.

The Bride:[does so] Are you calling me a superhero?

Bill: I'm calling you a killer! A natural born killer. You always have been, and you always will be. Moving to El Paso, working in a used record store, going to the movies with Tommy, clipping coupons. That's you … trying to disguise yourself as a worker bee. That's you trying to blend in with the hive. But you're not a worker bee. You're a renegade killer bee. And no matter how much beer you drank or barbecue you ate or how fat your ass got, nothing in the world would ever change that.

I thought the purpose of QT's unusual placement of the talky part is twofold: first, for revealing Bill's true motives as a tyrannical father in a rather clever analogy, and second for slowly but surely rebuilding the tension after the part where Beatrix finds out that her daughter is in fact alive and well with Bill. He's the only writer I know of who can use long talkative segments to such good effect. Inglourious Basterds had two or three scenes like this that were absolutely jaw-dropping. It also helps that his actors have always been great enough to maintain the audience's interest during such scenes.

As overwrought and silly as Tarantino gets, Pulp Fiction is still one of my favorite movies to this day. That one is just great. The other stuff - Kill Bill, Death Proof - gets pretty masturbatory and lopsided in quality, but eh, I'll always have PF so I'm fine really.

Tarantino is still crap though, and completely full of himself as well.I sort of forgot why I hated him until I catched a bit of Kill Bill 2 on tv. I loved that "this truth serum will take 3 minutes to work, so allow me a masturbatory philosophical monologue of questionable relevance to the movie" part. Well, I didn't really love it, but i would have if I'd enjoy screenwriters jerking themselves off in my face.I also love (in a genuine sense, because it makes me feel clever) when I can tell if a scene is a reference to another movie even though I've never seen it, simply by how hamfisted it is.

Yeah, that's definitely one of the key issues I, and likeminded people have with Tarantino. Moronic types revering him as exhuding originality, "genius" (mentioned somewhere in the last couple posts), having "amazing dialogue" and looking very deeply and realistically into the world of crime, etc, when he hamfistingly and fumblingly rips off or references films & filmmaking techniques that have been used to far greater effect by more talented filmmakers. If people like him, fine, but perhaps educate yourself on some cinematic history before touting his films and techniques as "original" and "genius". If you enjoy his films, good for you but I'm pretty sick of seeing him take credit from more talented and actually revolutionary filmmakers, such as Jean-Luc Godard and Truffaut for example.

And yeah, i tried watching Kill Bill Vol. 1 the other day and could only stomach about two minutes before switching it off. Hadn't seen it in ~10 years. What utter schlock.

_________________Razorwyre:promo track track from 'Another Dimension' LP"The best speed metal album of the year"

I pretty much love Tarantino because of how he mixes all his influences and references with some personal flavour. It's sure annoying when people watch his movies thinking everything in there is fresh. I love watching tribute stuff, and when it's a a melting pot of elements from a broad choice of films from different genres, I think there's a possibility to make things really interesting. And I think Tarantino succeeds in that. But granted it's not for everyone. I love his long dialogues that goes anywhere, are unrelated to the plot or are masturbatory, as well as some other elements in his film. It's just very extravagant and over the top, and I think it just fits pretty damn well with the whole tribute thing. Just the idea of doing a western with Django in its title is awesome. And another thing I love from him, is that every one of his films are geared toward a particular film genre. We got gangster stuff, blackspoitation, western, kung fu/revenge, war, short segments films. And he's particularly good for the choice of songs.

Oh, and I went to see Django Unchained yesterday. Unfortunately, after a bunch of shit happening to me and some friends, we got to see the film in french... so I won't comment right now for obvious reasons (even more that Cristoph Waltz is in the film). I'll only say that Franco Nero's cameo is really awesome.

I would never call him a genius or a true original but I find all of his films (with the exception of Kill Bill and Death Proof) immensly enjoyable and entertaining. Which is why I watch movies in the first place. I'm not going to get a hate boner on because I once took a film class and now I suddenly think I'm above his hyperactive dialogue and endearing obnoxiousness.

I think Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction are decent enough. I feel that since then, his films have degenerated into really cheap feeling throwaway stuff for the most part. His first film 'My Best Friend's Birthday' (1987) I've always found pretty interesting.

^ Yeah Kill Bill and Death Proof i found immensely hard to stomach.

_________________Razorwyre:promo track track from 'Another Dimension' LP"The best speed metal album of the year"

I would never call him a genius or a true original but I find all of his films (with the exception of Kill Bill and Death Proof) immensly enjoyable and entertaining. Which is why I watch movies in the first place. I'm not going to get a hate boner on because I once took a film class and now I suddenly think I'm above his hyperactive dialogue and endearing obnoxiousness.

I don't think anyone (at least I'm not) is saying that his films couldn't be considered entertaining at some basic level, but the point some of the others are trying to make, is that as far as originality, legitimacy, and artistic merit goes, Tarantino offers none, and you don't need to have taken a film class to see that. Some may find it hard to believe, but there are people who watch movies for other reasons than the 'huh huh cool' factor, which is all Tarantino has to offer.

I'm soft of confused by the vibe of Necroticism's post because he seems to accept the notion that Tarantino isn't anything genuinely special, but at the same time, has a problem with the fact that people say something about it. I mean, it's art, man. Tarantino would be the first to claim that his movies are pieces of art, he even claimed Inglorious Basterds to be his 'masterpiece' at the end of the film, so they are going to be scrutinized, not only be Tarantino himself, but by others who actually care. This is normal, right?

The bottom line is that if someone doesn't take an active approach to trying to learn the history and understand film (or anything for that matter), then they just don't know what they are talking about, and there is nothing wrong with that if they accept it and just say, like in the post above mine that they watch movies to be entertained. That's totally fine. But at the same time, it needs to be accepted that some people just might in fact know what they talking about. It's like me with metal. I like a lot of bands, and some people say they are shit, a good example is Opeth, but you won't see me arguing that Opeth is indeed a great band because I A) don't care enough about music to pretend like it means that much to me, and B) honestly don't research my music as much as some of the others here do. If someone seems to know what they are talking about and has a different opinion than mine, my first response is to try and listen and learn, not act like a child and get offended because someone says the music I like isn't any good.

I'm soft of confused by the vibe of Necroticism's post because he seems to accept the notion that Tarantino isn't anything genuinely special, but at the same time, has a problem with the fact that people say something about it.

That's fine and dandy, but at least don't have a fucking whinge about it while making dumb as fuck assumptions like Durd just did. Tarantino is neither a genius nor terribly original, something which even Tarantino himself already openly admits. I still think that he's very good at doing what he does, and I definitely prefer some of his films to influencing equivalents by Godard and Truffaut. Sorry for breaking your balls, I guess?

I'm no fan of Tarantino - though I quite like Reservoir Dogs and have an interest in seeing Django even though I despised the pretentiousness of Inglorious Bastards and was bored to death by Death Proof - but let's be fair here. In film - just like in metal music - it's not important to be a totally original and unique snowflake, but to know how to make things work for your piece. How to combine this with that and the other to create something that resembles something from the past, but in a new way. Or perhaps even in an old way, but just done better. Being original and unique is fine, I guess, but rarely does something that strives to be that end up becoming good listening or watching.